Phoenix has finally joined the ranks or San Francisco, Washington D.C. and Portland with the new addition of light-rail to their public transit system. Its been years in the making but the trains are finally moving around the city. It has yet to become as popular as the systems used in other cities but they are working on fine tuning everything.
The stations definitely have a modern feel to them, although I am not too excited to see how these tiny shades perform during the summer time. Did they honestly think that it was smart to hire a designer from another state?
It’s definitely nice to have another option on getting around town. I use it with my friends to visit the First Friday event each month in downtown Phoenix. The only issue that we have is that the last train leaves the station at 11pm which is way too early for a weekend. You would have figured with the strong enforcement on drunk drivers that they would keep the rail running at least until last call on the weekends so that these people won’t be driving, but you would be mistaken. For now they will only extend the hours for special events, but even then they don’t broadcast the hours properly so you don’t have a clue when the light-rail stops running.
So until they start extending the hours, I can only use the rail for certain events. Hopefully they will open weekend hours soon, before they loose their chance to gain weekend users.